Abstract Owing to their large specific areas, high thermal stability and chemical inertness, two-dimensional boron carbon nitride nanosheets (BCNNs) have captured much attention in recent years in the field of adsorption of pollutants. The formation of BCNNs via incorporating carbon into boron nitride (BN) can effectively improve the photoelectric and adsorption properties of the latter. In this work, carbon-doped BN (BCN) nanosheets were prepared at 1100 °C via a molten salt route using boric acid, melamine and glucose as the main starting materials. The effects of molten salt type and carbon doping level on the formation of BCN were investigated, and their isothermal adsorption properties in a methylene blue (MB) aqueous solution were evaluated based on the Langmuir and Freundlich models. The results indicated that using molten LiCl-KCl as a liquid medium was more favorable than NaCl-KCl to the formation of BCNNs. As-prepared BC_0.4N sample possessed a sheet-like structure of about 10 nm thick and a specific surface area as high as 484 m² g⁻¹. Moreover, the adsorption test of MB demonstrated a high adsorption capacity of 249.04 mg g⁻¹, which was about 14 times higher than that in the case of the pristine BN, and the kinetic rate constant value in the case of using BC_0.4N is about ten times as high as that of BN following a pseudo-second-order model, suggesting that the as-formed BC_0.4N nanosheets could be potentially used as a value-added effective adsorbent for future wastewater remediation.